Game 6 is in a few hours, and the Celtics have a chance to close out the series and the season tonight. We're on the road, but I am not as concerned about that as I would have been in prior years. All season long, Boston has been a better road team than a home team (one of the best road teams in the league, in fact)...but the Lakers have been the best home team in the league...so something has to give. All the Cs need is a split, but of course they want to end it tonight. No one in the Boston locker room is interested in a game 7 in LA.
They want to make sure tonight is the night.
To win, they need to bring the Celtics team that showed up for games 4 and 5. They need the team that plays up to their reputation: physical, defensive intensity, rebounding, hustle plays (getting to loose balls, getting back on fast breaks, beating their opponent to the spots, etc), high energy running game (with transition 3's...where has Ray Allen been for the past 3 games???), solid bench contributions and (controlled) aggression on both sides of the ball.
Defensively, the Celtics understand that Kobe is going to go off, but if they can contain the rest of the Lakers like they did in game 5 (and keep the crowd out of the game as much as possible), Boston is in good shape. Pau will play better at home, but they need to make sure the likes of Fisher, Odom, Artest, Bynum, etc. don't beat them.
Boston won't win a clinching game by 40 points like they did in 2008, but if they play up to their standard they can win this on the road...
My wife has commitments after work tonight and won't be home until around 10. When she gets in, we'll be making use of the same live streaming website as we did for game 5...but this time I'll be in the living room with the TV and she'll be in the bedroom with the laptop.
Now, the baseball-player-superstitious part of me wonders if I should repeat my viewing location from game 5 (since the Celtics won)...but I am trying to teach myself that my behavior does not influence the outcome of an NBA game in any way. (When the Celtics won the championship in 2008 I was on a golf course in Hawaii as the game ended...so since I can't repeat that I might as well just watch where I can watch...)
That being said, if the Celtics lose tonight, you bet I will be on the computer in the bedroom for game 7. No doubt.
But I have been avoiding the real issue about tonight...since there is a chance the series could end, the stakes in the house are extremely high. We could have the intensely awkward situation where one person is in full celebration mode, and the other wants to break everything in the house. And the house, remember, is a tiny, cramped New York City apartment. So it will be intense, so say the least.
A possible game 7 would ramp it up even more, since the inevitable end-of-game explosion (both of joy and disappointment) will be staring our marriage in the face the entire game. And though we understood that this situation was bound to happen at some point, of course, knowing that it could be tonight makes it much more tangible (read: "frightening").
Suffice it to say...when the series does end, someone will definitely be "going for a long walk."
Hold on tight...
And Go Celtics!
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Before she has even come home, I have retreated into the bedroom with the computer. The Celtics are garbage tonight (out-rebounded in the first half 30-13...are you f@cking kidding me??) so I want the computer to listen to the end of the Red Sox game.
ReplyDeleteThe extreme douchyness of Christina Aguilera's rendition of the National Anthem really set the tone for the Celtics tonigt. I am in awe of how awful a team's effort can be in a possible clinching game of a championship series. Just ridiculous. They should be embarrassed. And with Perkins probably done for the year with a knee injury, game 7 interior defense and rebounding looks like it's going in the sh!tter as well.
(VERY classy of the Lakers fans to boo and scream at Perkins as he is helped off the court, by the way. There is nothing like getting on a guy right after he blows out his knee to end his season...that is some Philadelphia sportsmanship right there. I had hoped LA fans would be above that, but I suppose not.)
Anyway, let's at least hope that game 7 isn't an embarrassment. What a pathetic effort.